Currently, solution providers have proposed deployment of network monitoring devices to sniff packets on traffic flows of communication networks and perform analysis based on the sniffed packets. In existing proposals, the network monitoring device (NPM) usually has the following functions: (1) receiving packets from directional traffic flows on transmission links in a data network; (2) performing statistical data calculations on the received packets of traffic flows; (3) reporting calculated statistical data to external processing devices or systems, such as a customer experience management systems or a data analytics processing device. However, there are issues associated with these proposals which are explained below.
Although the NPM is intended to sniff and analyse packets in order to acquire statistical data of user traffic, communication network operators or data network operators are interested in knowing how end users (customers) of their networks perceive throughput (download throughput and/or upload throughput). For example, communication network operators or data network operators are eager to determine the time taken from a first click by the end user on a browser of the end user's smartphone until a first bit (or a first byte) is received from the corresponding server (via the operator network).
More particularly, wireless network operators may be interested to know how long it takes from the first selection of a webpage object (e.g., a universal resource locator (URL) or a hyperlink) on a browser on a smartphone by an end user (customer) until a first bit (or a first byte) is received from corresponding server (via the operator network).
Such time can be considered as user-perceived delay for smartphone or smart device applications in which information is requested from a server in Internet. For example, in a wireless communication network a user-perceived delay may be caused by several sources, such as wireless network delay while the request message travels to a wireless network gateway connected to Internet; Internet and other network delay while the request message travels to a corresponding server responsible for processing the request; processing time at the server while the requested information is retrieved by the server and transmitted to the user device in a response message; another Internet and other network delay while the response message travels back to the wireless network gateway from the corresponding server; another wireless network delay while the response message travels to the user device from the wireless network gateway, etc.
Due to the large number of smart devices and wireless communication devices continuously accessing the Internet, it is difficult to monitor the user-perceived delay on each device.
Against this background there is a need for a method, an apparatus or a system to efficiently and more accurately estimate time elapsed between a user's first selection on an item or hyperlink on a web browser in a user device under control of the user and a first bit received by the user device from a corresponding web server.